


once, twice, thrice

by silverfoxflower



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Case Fic, Gen, Horror, OT3 if you squint, Storytelling, trigger warnings at end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:47:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27340705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverfoxflower/pseuds/silverfoxflower
Summary: Geralt, Yennefer and Jaskier gather at the ruins of a castle on a cold, stormy Samhain to perform an ancient ritual. As the night stretches before them, long and dark, each shares a tale of true terror. Who's story will invoke the ritual, and what will they summon?
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Jaskier | Dandelion & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 4
Kudos: 52
Collections: Sordid Saovine - The Witcher Halloween Event





	once, twice, thrice

**Author's Note:**

> Too late for Halloween, alas, but please enjoy this off-season spook. Horror-related tags/triggers are at the end.

It was a dark and stormy night.

Rain lashed against the crumbling stone walls of the castle, dripping through the broken windows. In the distance, arcs of lightning chased each other across the black sky and thunder rumbled threateningly.

Jaskier lit the candle with cold, trembling fingers and placed it before himself on the ground. To his right, Geralt sat cross-legged with his arms folded over his chest. To his left, Yennefer curled her legs under her fur-lined dress and looked on with a bored expression. Each had their own candle in front of them, and Yennefer was amusing herself by periodically snapping and changing the color of her flame. 

“Well,” Jaskier said, rubbing his arms through his thin silk jacket as he looked apprehensively at the gloomy ruin around them. “Who’s going to start?” 

Yennefer raised an eyebrow. “Scared?” 

“Yes!” Jaskier said empathetically, “Very! I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I have a very fragile, very lovely human body that I would like to keep in one piece.” 

A cold draft blew through the room, making the candles flicker. Hurriedly, Jaskier cupped a hand around his flame. 

“It’s getting impatient,” Geralt said, his pupils dilating in the low light as he stared steadily into the darkness beyond them. 

“I’ll begin,” Yennefer said, and drew in a soft breath.

\--

The halls of Aretuza were long and cold, its marble walls pulsing with centuries of ill-narnessed magic and adolescent menace. Every step, every word was echoed a hundredfold and carried to unexpected places. 

Yennefer was in her room when she overheard the hushed conference. 

“Who told you that …?” a girlish voice asked, followed by quiet laughter. 

Yennefer was new, intimidated by the rich, pretty girls in her class who made magic look so easy. They made little effort to include her in their confidences, and she spent most of her time in her room, when she wasn’t required in class. 

“... just a stupid story.” 

“No, it’s true! The sorceress at my cousin’s court said it told her how to pass the trials!” 

Yennefer didn’t hesitate to eavesdrop on the conversation, though it was unclear where the voices were actually coming from. When she moved to the door, the voices seemed to come from the far wall. When she plastered her ear to the wall, the voices seeped through the floorboards, and seemed to rattle under her feet. 

“... the southwest stair.”

“The one closed for repairs?” 

“That’s just a ruse, you see. Of course they don’t want us to _cheat_ …” 

From bits and snatches, Yennefer heard the story of the spirit that hunted the southwest hall and could be summoned with a simple ritual performed on a moonless night. 

“... just face the wall at the bottom of the stair and call her name three times: Ona of the Wall, Ona of the Wall, Ona of the Wall. When you hear the sound of something scraping against the stone then she will have arrived.” 

“Scraping the stone?” 

“That’s how she died, you know. Portaled herself right into the wall. She screamed and screamed, but no one ever found her. She must have scratched her nails bloody.” 

“ _Ugh_.” 

“She perished just after passing her trials, poor thing. It’s how she knows the secrets. And she’ll answer all that you ask, as long as …” 

“As long as what?” 

“As long as you don’t turn to look at her. No matter what you feel. No matter what you hear. You _cannot_ turn to look.” 

“Or what?” 

Yennefer strained her ears, but the voices faded down the hall. 

The next morning, Yennefer sat in her first class and looked upon each of her classmates with suspicion. There was Sabrina, chatting happily with Fringilla. They were the stars of the class, what need had they for cheating the trial? 

A loud clatter drew Yennefer’s attention to Doralis, who had dropped her book. Tissaia gave her a cold look that made her wilt. 

Now there was a girl who would need all the help she could get. But who liked her enough to help her?

_If you haven’t done the reading, you can copy off of me_ , Anica’s voice nudged Yennefer’s mind, and Yennefer glanced up to see the girl flash her a shy smile before turning forward to watch Tissaia. 

_Thanks,_ Yennefer answered, surprised. She wasn’t even sure whether Anica could receive her message. 

Maybe Yennefer, too, needed all the help she could get. 

\--

The next moonless night came in twelve days’ time. Though Yennefer listened intently to the walls of her room, there were no more conversations about Ona in the Wall. Just snatches of banter and complaints and once, unnerving, the sound of a girl crying wildly. 

“What’s wrong?” Anica asked. 

“Why do you think something is wrong?” Yennefer answered, perhaps too quickly. 

“You’re too quiet,” she said, bumping Yennefer warmly with her shoulder. “What are you so nervous about?” 

It was on the tip of Yennefer’s tongue to tell her about the rumors of Ona in the Wall, but, well. If they were false, she did not want to share her humiliation. And if they were true … 

There were only so many spots for court sorceresses, after all. Everyone was possible competition. 

“Nothing,” Yennefer said smoothly. “I did not sleep well last night, is all.” 

That night, Yennefer waited until the last bell of the night struck, until the shuffling around her faded into silence as the other girls settled down to sleep. Taking her candle, she snuck quietly from her room and made for the southwest staircase. 

The way was dark. Though she tried to move silently, each one of her steps echoed loudly down the winding halls. Every creak and shift made her jump, though surely it was just the wind settling through the stone. 

At last, she reached the southwest staircase. Perhaps once it had opened to a wing full of libraries and classrooms. Now it was the precipice to only darkness. Yennefer stood at the top of the stair and shone her candle down, seeing nothing but empty, white steps. And at the bottom, a stone wall built to brick off whatever was on the other side.

Taking a quick breath, Yennefer grabbed her skirt in her hand and began to descend, each one of her steps ringing behind her. Soon, the circle of light cast by her candle shrank to the size of a dinner plate, and all she could see before her, stretching off into the darkness on every side, was the stone wall. 

Yennefer swallowed, feeling exposed with her back to the open stair. “Ona of the Wall,” she whispered. Her candle flickered and she flinched. “Ona of the Wall, Ona of the Wall,” Yennefer finished in a rush. 

At first, there was nothing. 

Yennefer breathed out, relieved and disappointed. But then.

The sound of nails on stone. 

At first faint, then growing closer. They weren’t normal, human nails. The sound was grating, like metal. The blunt edge of a knife dragging, dragging against the stone. 

Yennefer found that she was trembling so hard that the candle rattled in its dish. 

The scratching grew louder and louder, and accompanying it was the sound of wet, smacking lips. 

Yennefer closed her eyes, her back ramrod-stiff. Her own breath sounded loud as she panted in fear. The scratching was so loud that it physically hurt to hear, the wet mouth noises now right in her ear. 

_I have to portal_ , she thought dizzily, _I’m going to-_ before a horrifying image came to her. Buried alive in the stone walls. Scrabbling uselessly at the stone. In the dark. Screaming until her throat was coated in dust-

“Yennefer!” 

A tight grasp on Yennefer’s forearm twisted her around, and Yennefer shrieked before she saw it was Tissaia, hair braided over her shoulder, her face white with anger. 

“What are you _doing_ here, girl?” Tissaia demanded, but Yennefer never got the chance to answer before she fainted dead away. 

\--

The next morning, Tissaia called each girl to her study one by one and read their minds. None knew of any spirits in the southwest stair. 

There was no record of an Ona who had ever been a student at Aretuza. 

\--

There was silence after Yennefer’s story. 

“Perhaps I was simply going mad,” Yennefer said, smiling thinly. “Or perhaps there was … _is_ a creature in that building with the remarkable power of mimicry and a taste for young girls. I never did discover why they closed off the southwest wing.” She pinched her fingers around the flame of her candle and it extinguished, leaving a thread of smoke. 

“I’ll go next,” Geralt said. 

\--

The northern mountains bred strange folk - pockets of humanity isolated from the rest of civilization for the better part of the year, when the narrow, icy overpasses grew untraversable.

It was luck - good or ill - that Geralt received the summons in the golden days of mid-autumn, at a rare time of year when Ostavall could be accessed with a brisk trek through the Chiavan mountains. Still, Geralt was not surprised that he was the only Witcher who elected to take the job. 

He could sense something strange well before he stepped foot in the village, when he was met by the alderman in Mort. 

“It must be you, the Witcher,” he had a sunburnt face and wore clothing of a style half century past. The townspeople of Mort gave him and his mule a wide berth. “We are so grateful for your help.” He clasped Geralt’s hand between his own rough palms, and Geralt was so startled that he allowed it. “I am called Jan, and you, brother?” 

He smiled at Geralt, showing all his teeth. 

“Geralt of Rivia,” Geralt said, feeling unsettled. “I am no brother of yours,” he said, pulling his hand away quickly. 

“We are all brethren under Melitele’s grace,” Jan said, unoffended. Under the dark stares of the passerby, he mounted his mule and turned her head towards the mountains, which rose before them in the horizon like great, jagged teeth. 

\--

The feeling of strangeness only intensified when they arrived within the bounds of Ostavall, made worse because there was no clear cause. In the thick of battle, or stalking alone in the woods, Geralt’s instincts had never led him wrong. But here he was under the full sun, riding through the town square of a small, shabby village where the houses were built tall and stacked atop each other, lines of laundry flapping in the breeze above him. Scrawny goats wandered through the narrow dirt roads, followed by scrawnier children. It was nothing Geralt hadn’t seen before, a hundred, a thousand times. 

If only it wasn’t for the townspeople, who all seemed to share the same, placid smile, watching the men as they passed with glassy eyes. 

Jan led him to a cottage in the center of town. It was larger than the others, built tall with dark wood rafters and narrow, arched windows. A large, stone fountain dominated the courtyard before the house. At the moment, the fountain was dry, but Geralt saw a passing woman crouch and press her forehead briefly against its lip, muttering something reverent under her breath before hurrying along. 

Jan saw him looking and said, “That is where our Sainted Lady blesses the waters each morning.” 

Geralt did not reply as he followed Jan into the dark house. He had heard of the strange beliefs which infected the mountain villages. Most were harmless, though they took liberal interpretation of Meilete’s word. Some worshiped their own living deities, some practiced hersey, some worshipped as the elves did, ancient gods that slumbered beneath the dirt. 

Ostavall had a sin-eater. 

Jan had called her _Our Lady Sieglinde, angel of Ostavall_ , and spoken of little else all the way up the mountain. He claimed that she possessed the extraordinary ability to invoke peace and clear-mindedness to any person, merely by supping their blood. 

Geralt was led to a balcony overlooking the dining room, where he observed five people at the table. The sin-eater was a dainty girl of about seventeen, with eyes the color of fresh bruises. She sat at the head of the table, with who Geralt assumed to be her mother, Phenna, at her right side. They both had the same rust-brown hair and soft jawline, though the mother had lines of worry creasing her soft face. To the left, the girl’s father, Gehes, stood with his hand on her shoulder. He was a dark-haired man of middle years with sharp, sly features. The final guests were seated on the opposite side of the table, their expressions exposing pain and desperation. Geralt could tell from their clothing that they were from out-of-town, perhaps as far as Yspaden. 

None at the table had any food in front of them. 

Jan stepped forward to stand next to Geralt, clasping his hands at his waist, his expression tranquil. Geralt’s gaze turned to the girl, noting her pale face, the pale pink scars under the high neck of her dress. 

“... thank you, _thank you_ for seeing us,” the woman at the end of the table wept, reaching out to clasp Phenna’s hands. 

“Our Karl …” the man clenched his fists on his lap, “We could tolerate the cats. The rabbits. But the _fires_ -” 

“Trouble yourself no more,” Gehes put his hand on the husband’s shoulder. “Sieglinde’s gift will heal your son of all his troubles.” His voice dropped, “Have you the coin?” Hurriedly, the husband pressed a heavy pouch into the man’s hands. 

“Have you the blood?” Sieglinde’s mother asked, and the weeping woman produced a vial from her sleeve. 

The vial was whisked away by a servant and brought back to Sieglinde in a shallow saucer with a loaf of sliced bread. From his vantage, Geralt could see the dark, slick surface of the blood, a perfect circle as it lapped against the brim of the saucer. 

Though he expected what came next, Geralt felt physical revulsion when he saw the sin-eater press a piece of bread into the blood and bring it to her mouth. She ate the entire plate in a slow, methodical manner, her expression unchanging as her lips became stained with gore. Meanwhile, Sieglinde’s father was rambling about how she took man’s sin into her body, purifying the blood as she purified the soul, all according to Melitele’s mercy. 

“Why have you called me here?” Geralt muttered, sliding Jan a look. 

There was a sudden clatter as Sieglinde stood from the table. 

“No!” Sieglinde’s mother shouted as her daughter took a few, swaying steps before collapsing to her knees, her body shuddering violently before she heaved, retching the contents of her stomach onto the floor. 

“That,” Jan said, his voice thin as commotion reigned below. 

\--

“Her body has been ruined,” Gehes curled his lip as he sank deeply into a chair. Sieglinde had been taken to her room by her mother, and servants were scrubbing the mess on the floor. The out-of-town couple had not been pleased, and neither was Gehes, after he was forced to return their money. “She can hardly rise from her bed, much less work.” 

“Ruined how?” Geralt asked quietly. 

“What you just saw, for one. Can’t keep a stomachfull down. She’s up all nights howling and crying, scratching at herself like a woman possessed,” Gehes shook his head, “No one in the house has had a peaceful night’s sleep for a fortnight.” 

Jan turned to Geralt, “It is a curse, we suspect. Cast by an enemy of Sieglinde’s holy powers.” 

_Or by a diet of bread and blood,_ Geralt thought, his lips pressing into a thin line. His medallion hadn’t sensed any magic about the girl, though he’d hardly been allowed to get close to her. “Have you brought her to a healer?”

Gehes pulled out a pipe and lit it, shaking out the match with an irritated motion. “Are you daft? Sieglinde’s powers are beyond the comprehension of common quacks. They’d wish to take her, study her. No, she must not leave the village.” 

“Can speak to her, at least?” Geralt asked with a short sigh.

Gehes hesitated, the smoke curling from his mouth when he pulled the pipe from between his lips. “Tomorrow morning,” he said finally, “After she blesses the fountain. She is commonly calmer in the mornings,” he offered, with a touch of reluctance. 

“You should examine the foreigner’s grave,” a female voice interrupted the meeting. It was Phenna, walking from the shadows of the hall. She turned to Geralt, “Just before Sieglinde sickened, we were visited by a man from Murivel. He had a suspicious air about him … I saw him muttering to himself before the door, and the way he glared at Sieglinde ...” she wrung her hands at her waist, grimacing. “No doubt he has something to do with my Sieglinde’s malady.” Geralt noticed that she had blood under her blunt nails, and scratches on her forearms. 

“How did he die?” Geralt asked sharply. 

“Thrown from his horse on his way out of town,” Jan said. “We knew no kin, so buried him at the edge of the graveyard. You’ll find him by the fresh plot.” 

Geralt accepted this with a tilt of his chin, watching through narrowed eyes as Gehes stood abruptly, followed by his wife. They disappeared down the hall, where the sound of Sieglinde’s cries began to ring. 

\--

It was past nightfall when Geralt found the grave site, set away from the other plots and dark with freshly overturned earth. There was hardly even a headstone, just a marker made from a piece of smooth rock. 

“At least they didn’t leave him to the crows,” Geralt muttered, petting Roach as he tied her a distance away, retrieving his equipment from her saddle bags. Among them, a spade lent by Jan. 

He still didn’t know what he was dealing with, and that made him wary. With the cold wind swirling around his ankles, sending leaves skittering across his boots, Geralt set his teeth and began to dig. 

The soil on the mountains was thin and rocky. The body was buried only a few feet down, enclosed in a simple wooden coffin which rang with a hollow sound against Geralt’s spade. Tossing the tool aside, Geralt flexed his cold fingers, walking a half-circle around the open grave as he accustomed himself to the likelihood that this was all a wild goose chase. The corpse in the box had no magic about it. Geralt’s medallion hung heavy around his neck, still as the dead around him. 

Still, Geralt kept a hand on his sword when he unlatched and raised the lid of the coffin, which creaked loudly in the still night air. 

\--

The cool fingers of dawn fell upon Ostavall in tones of blue and lavender. The villagers stirred early, roused by some silent, unknowable duty. If they minded the Witcher striding through their midst, grimy and disgruntled, trailing graveyard dirt through the square, they gave no motion of it, going about their tasks like clockwork figurines. 

The courtyard was crowded when he arrived, women with empty buckets and children at their hips, men with tired eyes, pulling at their beards. The fountain was now filled with clear, sparkling water, pumped from a well deep below. 

Sieglinde was pale, swaying from foot to foot, and wincing from her father’s firm grip on her arm. Throughout it all, she kept a gentle smile on her face as she cut open her palms with a sharp knife. “Blood of my body, flesh of my body,” she murmured, cupping a handful of water and offering it to an elderly woman, who gave prayer as she sipped from Sieglinde’s fingertips. 

“Ah, Witcher,” Jan said, moving through the crowd to stand at his side. This morning he looked bright and scrubbed clean, a sharp contrast from Geralt’s grimy display. “Have you come to partake?” 

“She does this every morning?” Geralt asked, his voice low. 

“Yes, of course,” Jan said, “She has great devotion to the village, you see. Even in her cursed condition-” 

“And everyone attends?” 

“Not a one would miss it,” Jan said, looking perplexed as Geralt dropped a pouch of coins in his hand with a dark grimace. “Wait!” Jan called after Geralt as he pulled on Roach’s reins and turned to the road out of town. “Aren’t you going to speak to Sieglinde? What of the curse?” 

“There are no monsters in this town, or curses,” Geralt said over his shoulder. He felt a brief flash of pity for the girl and for all of Ostavall. “The man from Murivel was stricken with plague.” 

\--

“Wait!” Jaskier said, when Geralt grew silent. “What happened to Ostavall?” 

“Last I heard, the girl died and took most of the village with her,” Yennefer said, shifting her feet under her so she sat on her heels. “Of course, they attribute it all to a magical blight.” 

“Of course,” Geralt said steadily, and blew out the candle in front of him, the darkness covering his body. 

Only Jaskier was left in a circle of light. Looking at Geralt and Yennefer’s expectant faces, he drew a shaky breath. 

“Guess it’s up to me, now, huh?” 

\--

At dawn, Jaskier was walking home from a banquet when he saw a lady walking on the beach with her hair unbound and her feet bare, so beautiful that Jaskier instantly fell in love.

"Hello," he said, jogging to catch up with her, "Fancy meeting you here. I, um, just came from a bit of a bacchanal. You know how it is … but, uh, you … you seem more the type to rise early. Getting the day started on the right foot and all, yeah?" 

Jaskier squinted up at the sun, hearing the seabirds cry in the light blue sky. When he looked back, the woman was staring at him with a bemused expression. She was even lovelier up close, with a dainty chin and full mouth, grey eyes fringed with lashes and brown hair that curled softly around her face, reaching to her waist. When the sun hit her directly, it seemed as if her eyes flashed silver and her hair held undertones of green, like kelp waving in the ocean.

"Am I bothering you? Just say the word and I'll leave you to your travels," Jaskier asked earnestly. She shook her head and he smiled, relieved. "I'm glad. When I spied you from the road, I could feel my heart travelling from my body. I thought, I must speak to such a rare beauty, and obtain her name, so that I may know who to pen my sonnets to, and perhaps have some small chance of wrestling that treacherous organ back into my chest."

The woman laughed behind her hand, a sound like the swirl of sea foam against the rocks.

"I am Jaskier Alfred Pankranz," Jaskier offered, pausing when they reached the edge of the Lettenhove property. "Will you be here tomorrow?"

The woman nodded, giving Jaskier a sly, silvery half-smile, and continued walking.

\-- 

Though it pained him to do so, Jaskier forced himself to wake early the next morning in hopes of meeting the enchanting lady again.

As promised, she was walking along the beach, this time pausing every few steps to drop her feet in the surf, lifting her skirts and watching the water swirl against her bare toes with amusement.

This early, the only living beings around were the fishermen bringing in the early catch, and the birds which dived around them, in the distance. 

"Are you from around here?" Jaskier asked, after they had been walking silently for a while. 

The woman looked at him, then half-shook her head, shrugging helplessly.

"Not here, but somewhere near?" Jaskier guessed, "Perhaps Denesele? No? Further? Perhaps Cidarian?"

His guesses grew wilder and wilder and the woman shook her head at each one, laughing silently at some of the suggestions.

She had the most expressive face, Jaskier decided. Walking with her, it was easy to forget that she never spoke, as even her silences were filled with meaning. He could read the displeasure in her pursed lips, the incredulity in her raised brows and simple delight in her smile.

And of course, he was more than willing to fill the silences between them.

He took her hand at some point, larger than he expected, with long, slender fingers. Jaskier found he quite liked that, and entwined his digits with hers, and they fit quite wonderfully 

"I never did get your name," he said hopefully, when they reached the edge of his estate.

She put a finger to her lips and smiled evasively. 

"A mystery then?" Jaskier said, wondering if she was married. It was no matter to him, of course. "Very well, I shall tell my hollow chest that it must do without its master for the indefinite future. Until my lady decides to have pity on this poor, heartless wretch."

The woman rolled her eyes, but smiled.

\--

On the third morning, Jaskier brought his lute and they reclined together on a sandy mound as he regaled her with love ballads. She seemed to adore his singing, humming along to his melodies with a low, purring sound as she tapped her fingers against his thigh, her delicate, innocent touches driving him quite mad. 

Even when he finished his playing, she continued singing, her voice clear and full under the bright summer sky as she returned his performance with her own. Jaskier was struck by the strange beauty of her song. The melody, the language was like nothing he had ever heard of in his widest travels, but doubtless it had meaning to her, as two silvery tears slid down her cheeks. 

Jaskier brushed them away, and kissed her, and she tasted of salt and the sea. 

\--

They walked to the edge of the water, where she continued forward and Jaskier paused to remove his shoes and roll up his pant legs before jogging to follow her in. Soon, they were waist-deep, then chest-deep in the surf, the cold water pulling at their legs. 

“Maybe we should head back? It’s quite chilly here, don’t you think-” 

A fast-moving current curled around Jaskier’s ankle and suddenly he was swept so deep that he could not feel the bottom underneath his feet. Jaskier was a fair swimmer, but he began to panic as the shore grew further and further away.

A cold hand on his shoulder spun him around, and Jaskier let out a breath upon seeing his lover bobbing beside him, her expression tranquil. She tangled her fingers with his, and when he opened his mouth it filled with seawater as she dragged him under. 

Though Jaskier flailed at first, her grip on him was like iron, and soon he was surprised to find that his lungs did not burn and he did not want for breath. She led him down, down, past the waving seaweed and darting schools of fish to where the water was dark and the sunlight broke through only in patches. Jaskier thought that his entire body must be numb not to feel how cold it was. Surely, were he above ground, his breath would be steaming in the air. 

They swam by great, dark columns of rock, growing from the ocean floor like trees of a forest, colored black and brown and rust-red, riddled through with holes. 

Jaskier thought he saw cold silver eyes blinking at him from the dark openings, and flashes of writhing, pale tentacles. Some of them looked remarkably like human limbs, dead arms and hands and fingers grasping for his living flesh. Shuddering, he turned his gaze forward to see that they were approaching the yawning entrance of a cavern. 

There seemed to be an unholy glow emanating from deep within. 

Jaskier felt a sharp spike of fear at the sight, struggling against the woman’s hold. She turned to him, her expression beautiful and cold, hair billowing around her face like a halo. Now it seemed that their positions were reversed. When Jaskier tried to speak, all that escaped from his lips were silvery bubbles of air, while the woman opened her mouth and sang. 

It was that strange, lovely melody again. It climbed into Jaskier’s brain and made him grow limp in her grasp, and so she was able to easily lead him deeper, and deeper into the cave. 

In the dim light, Jaskier could see a faint glitter on the walls, and as they approached the odd, pulsing luminescence in the center of the cave, he could see the room of the inner cavern was piled high with treasure, rubies and emeralds the size of his fists hanging from their chains like ripe fruit, iron chests cracked like ribcages spilling gold coins across the floor. There were bejeweled chalices and silver swords and statues carved from jet-black obsidian, treasure enough to sustain _kingdoms_. 

The woman released Jaskier’s wrist at last, spreading her own arms and making a playful turn, the water swirling around her body. Expectantly, she blinked up at him. He understood her gestures to suggest the offering of a gift, a choice. 

Glancing around, Jaskier’s gaze was immediately drawn to an ivory lyre. 

It was the finest thing he’d ever seen, decorated with delicate carvings, its gold strings gleaming softly under the strange light. He drifted towards it, and felt, upon lifting it, a strange heft. 

The woman placed her fingers softly upon Jaskier’s wrist. Her expression was strange, staring down at the lyre, then up at him. Jaskier did not know whether he had made the correct choice, but when she kissed him, her hair falling across them both, he found that he could not bring himself to care. 

\--

Jaskier blinked awake. The sun was high in the sky and there was no one beside him on the beach. 

Jaskier told himself that he must have fallen asleep after their impromptu concert and dreamt it all, but as he made to push himself upwards, he realized that his hand was gripped tightly around something that gleamed white in the sun.

It was the lyre that the lady had offered him. It had seemed beautifully otherworldly under the water, but Jaskier was struck with a sudden chill when he discovered it to be made of bone, human bone, shaped into an instrument and strung with strings made from Meiltele knows what. Not more body parts, he hoped.

A far shuffle drew Jaskier's attention to a fisherman walking to his boat. 

"Hey!" Jaskier called, and the fisherman stopped, tugging on his cap respectfully when he saw Jaskier scramble up and hurry to him.

"Yes, Milord?"

"Have you seen a woman walk by? She's … well, she's quite attractive. Dark hair, grey eyes? Perhaps you've seen us walk by this beach earlier or on past days?"

"Begging your Lordship's pardon, I've seen no one save yourself."

Jaskier so sighed, "So you weren't here at dawn then."

"Indeed I am, every morning,” the fisherman said, “And begging your pardon, all I saw was your Lordship walking by yourself and speaking to the air.”

“I … what?” Jaskier’s voice was faint, his face pale. “You must be mistaken … she was just here!” 

The fisherman bobbed an apologetic bow and hurried off to his work, looking back worriedly at Jaskier as he remained alone on the beach. 

Jaskier sat down heavily in the sand, feeling a chill run through his body. For a while, he looked over the swelling tides, thinking of the lady’s lips, and her cold, cold hands. When he felt he could stand it, drew the lyre into his lap and turned it over, examining it. 

The lyre he had seen in the cavern had been of exquisite design, carved with delicate detail in patterns of flowers and trailing vines. This bone-lyre looked like something washed up from the surf, chipped and yellowing, with spots worn coarse, like it had been gnawed. 

Jaskier was nauseated to see that the bottom of the lyre was made of a human jaw, the strings tied through each individual tooth. Still, it was an instrument, and on impulse, Jaskier ran his fingers over the strings, snatching his hand away when the lyre began to shudder unnaturally.

It sang,

_The dead of the sea, they call to thee,  
Once, twice, thrice,  
If you think to ignore their plea,  
Prepare to pay a price_

_The dead of the sea, they call to thee,  
They have your heart in hand,  
If you think to ignore their plea,  
You must remain on land_

_The dead of the sea have taken my voice,  
But I offer thee this song,  
Sing far and wide of my warning tonight,  
If you wish your days be long_

_The dead of the sea, they called to me,  
Long I’ve wandered this shore,  
My choice I made most happily,  
And you’ll ne’er see me more_

The lyre never sang after that day, and though Jaskier returned many times to the shore at dawn, the woman kept to her word, and never appeared again. . 

\--

“... the warning was vague, but I’ve done the best I could,” Jaskier laughed, his voice strained, “Every performance, I warn all not to follow strange women into water, and-” 

Jaskier’s next words were choked out of him as long, dark fingers came from the shadows and wrapped around his throat. 

“Jaskier!” Geralt shouted, bolting up with his hand on his sword. There was a sudden clatter as Jaskier’s leg shot out and knocked over his candle, plunging them all into darkness. 

Yennefer muttered something in Elder and a low lavender light bloomed in the center of the room, revealing Jaskier, twisting in the grip of something with long limbs and sunken holes where its eyes should be. 

Geralt gritted his teeth, crouching as his eyes darted around the room, looking for an opening. 

"Did that last story hit a little too close to home?" Yennefer called out, walking forward slowly to face the wraith. "Perhaps you left some remains you'd like us to fashion into instrumentation? I hear bone flutes are quite fashionable this year." She raised her hand, sending a dart of energy towards the wraith. It shrieked, dodging easily out of the way, but loosened its grip on Jaskier's neck just enough for Geralt to yank him out of the way.

"Bit close there, wasn't it?" Jaskier coughed, falling against the wall by Geralt's feet. 

The wraith hissed, and began fading from sight, only to blink back into existence with an anguished howl. The ground under it was engraved with the sign of Yrden.

With a flash of silver, Geralt drove his sword into the wraith's exposed ribcage, pressing it slowly, slowly forward, his mouth a grim line as the wraith unhinged it's jaw and gave a last, terrifying screech before crumbling into nothing.

"Dust to dust," Geralt muttered, sheathing his blade.

The storm had ended, and through the cracked glass of the arched window, the first colors of dawn began to seep across the horizon.

\--

"You don't look very happy for one who's escaped with his life," Yennefer stepped delicately over the chipped flagstones at the entrance, her skirt swinging around her legs as she leaned against a pillar.

"I was thinking …"

"That's new," Yennefer snorted.

Jaskier scowled. "I was thinking of what you said, how the wraith reacted to my story. Maybe it had some unfinished business? Was unjustly murdered? Now we'll never know."

"It always comes on the third," Geralt said, then walked between them and down the steps.

"What?" Jaskier leapt to his feet.

"The Ritual of Three, performed on Samhain, summons the ghost before the third candle is snuffed," Yennefer sedately followed Geralt down the path which wound from the castle entrance to it's gates.

"You knew this and you let me go last?" Jaskier asked accusingly, trotting to follow along.

"You are the self-proclaimed master of tales, after all. I thought we'd go out on a high note." Yennefer swept a strand of hair over her shoulder with a careless gesture.

"Unbelievable," Jaskier muttered. "I'll have a tale to tell of this, that's for sure."

"Not everything has to be a story," Geralt said, but his tone was soft, amused.

"Of course not," Jaskier said, "That poor ghost, for example. Dying without a voice, without a chance to air its grievances. Such eternal torment! I shall do the noble thing and immortalize its suffering in song."

"I doubt the wraith will appreciate whatever ludicrous backstory you decide to conjure," Yennefer muttered.

"Good that it's in no place to protest then!" Jaskier swung his lute to his front and began to pluck the first chords of what would be his next epic, his music mingling with the early birdsong as morning stretched over the horizon, spreading before them in a watercolor tableau.

Geralt, Jaskier and Yennefer walked steadily towards the light, leaving the mouldering ruins of the castle to grow smaller and smaller behind them, until it vanished entirely into the mist.

**Author's Note:**

> TW: blood ingestion, mild self-harm, mention of plague/infection, mild horror imagery
> 
> My [tumblr](https://greyduckgreygoose.tumblr.com/tagged/myfic)


End file.
